


The Sand In The Bottom Half Of The Hourglass.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Coffeehouses, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Canon, Regency Era Coffeehouses, Romantic Friendship, Yuletide 2014, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arabella has taken to patronizing a coffeehouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sand In The Bottom Half Of The Hourglass.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaesa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/profile)**[Kaesa](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/)**! The title is from Immortals by Fall Out Boy.

In the months since The Event, Arabella has taken to patronizing a coffeehouse. Emma cannot approve of this, nor does she fully understand it, but still she visits her friend at the coffeehouse every Wednesday without fail.

The denizens of the coffeehouse would under normal circumstances never allow a woman, let alone two, into their midst, but one of these women is Mrs. Strange, and this coffeehouse has lately been taken over by these new magicians, these so-called Strangites. They would sooner curse the Raven King than throw out Mrs. Strange, so eager are they to discover any paltry details that the great man might have mentioned to his wife.

Emma hopes these men entertain Arabella, for she cannot imagine any other reason for her friend to suffer their company as she does.

Arabella has two cups of coffee waiting when Emma arrives. It is not as good as the coffee Emma drinks at home, but the point of a coffeehouse is not the coffee, it is the company and the location. Arabella has several newspapers spread out in front of her, certain articles circled in thick lines with notes written lengthwise down the page.

Emma takes a sip of the coffee and reminds herself to swallow. Arabella encourages the coffee to remain hot until Emma arrives; Emma cannot understand why Arabella cannot also encourage the coffee to taste better. 

"Tell me the news," Emma says, and Arabella smiles and takes up the newspapers and starts to point out noteworthy stories to Emma. Arabella sees things that Emma does not; Emma was longer in Faerie, but Arabella is both married to a magician and _wants_ to know. Emma sincerely does not wish to know more about magic than she does. Arabella has assured her that she could learn magic easily should she ever wish to. Emma does not wish to.

The return of magic has been so abrupt around them that Emma must close her eyes when her sewing forms spells for her to speak, for she will not speak them. The cutlery at dinner will chime against the plate with sharp notes that cause a rainstorm if Emma is not careful, but she is careful. When Emma was young, she had been entranced by the possibilities of magic and the history of the great magicians. She had studied the stories of the young women who had been abducted into Faerie and then she had become one of them. Magic was a delightful story as a child, but a terrible reality to bear.

And now magic is everywhere and Arabella embraces it, and Emma is glad for her friend, and protective of herself. Emma leaves the magic for Arabella and Arabella leaves the letter-writing for Emma. Emma fights so that Arabella may do magic that Emma cannot bear to watch her do. Mrs. Strange's Society For Ladies meets in Emma's parlor fortnightly; Emma has yet to attend.

It is an odd world that Emma lives in now, perhaps you could even call it, she thinks, a wry twist to her lips, a strange one. She had spent so much time ill in her youth, with her history books her best companions, and then so many years had been stolen from her by the gentleman's magic. For the first time in her life, she feels younger than she is. She feels like she is just beginning to live. She wonders if Arabella, freed from Faerie and her own contrived death, feels the same way.

Arabella is describing to her a report of four children from Sheffield who have walked through a wall and out from beneath a well when Emma finishes her coffee and distantly, bells begin to ring.

Emma shivers. Arabella does not seem to hear it, but she notices Emma's distraction and expresses her concern. Emma smiles and covers Arabella's hand with her healed one. "Dear Arabella, you were telling me of how the well stood upside down. What did the water do?"

"Are you sure you would not like some more refreshments? You look very pale," Arabella says.

"It is nothing," Emma protests. "Merely a chill." And it is indeed colder than it was a moment before.

Arabella appears even more concerned, for it is a warm summer day. She clasps Emma's hand. "The water remained in the well. One of the children drew a picture of what she saw while the well rose up around her. I plan to write to her to ask her to make a copy of it for me to include in my book."

"Your readers would like to see it," Emma says. Arabella is writing a book of magical instruction for young girls based on her own journey of learning magic. Mr. Strange taught his wife nothing of his magic, but Arabella is a quick study, and she has the example of so many women now who call themselves magicians and do magic as easily as needlepoint. Arabella believes Emma would also learn magic easily, but, wonderful woman that she is, she does not ask.

"If her parents will agree, I would like to interview her as well about the spell that she and her friends performed. I believe it may be similar to the ones to summon disappearing roads. They may have taken a road that runs perpendicular to the world, but one that did not go through Faerie. Imagine taking a right turn and beginning to walk upward, but being in no danger."

"Except, potentially, of drowning," Emma points out.

"Yes, one would have to be careful to ask the water to please remain above you." Arabella smiles and Emma returns it. Arabella always speaks of magic so differently from how Emma remembers Norrell and Mr. Strange speaking of it. They talked of spells and magical objects and it all sounded like the work of men, made as complicated as possible so the men would feel as important as possible. Arabella speaks of magic as persuasion, as asking a favor from a friend, but these friends are the very elements of the world. Arabella would speak to the stairs to have them transport her upwards when she is tired, would speak to the clouds to please rain a little further to the right so that the plants that often complain to her of being dry would have water to drink, would speak to the birds to not chirp so loudly near Emma's window when Emma has a headache. And in return, Emma has witnessed Arabella doing a hundred small gestures and favors for the elemental magics. For Arabella, magic is simply a language to learn, not a book to be kept hidden in a library and never spoken of. It is a friendship and an agreement, a way of living with each other, a way of positioning herself and her existence in the world.

Arabella makes it seem simple to live amongst magic the way she does, but Emma knows that victory was hard-won, and she admires her friend greatly for it. But it is not a journey Emma thinks she can undergo herself.

The bells are getting louder and harder to ignore.

"Do you hear that?" Emma asks.

Arabella pauses, and Emma knows Arabella does not, but now she is straining to hear whatever Emma is hearing. Then Arabella becomes even more still. "I hear it," she says.

It seems as if all the bells of London are chiming. It's not a melody, it's a cacophony of noise. A wind sweeps through the room from nowhere and Emma looks instinctively to the mirror in the back corner. It is, as always, covered by a black cloth. As Emma watches, the black cloth seems to push inward and downward and float outward and upward at the same time, and then vanish into a deeper darkness.

And from this darkness, a man steps through.

Emma glances at Arabella, who is staring at the man, horror-struck. Then Arabella blinks and shakes her head, as if coming out of a spell. Emma looks back at the man, who is suddenly completely ordinary. No one else appears to have noticed him. He has something of the aspect of Jonathan Strange to him, but the darkness has left the man and Arabella has not approached him, so he cannot be Arabella's husband. Emma pities her friend, for poor Arabella is forever looking twice at shadows in mirrors, forever hoping it is her husband returning to her through the King's Roads.

The bells have ceased, leaving a very loud silence. All the noise of the coffeehouse is muted, like it is taking place on the other side of a glass or at the bottom of deep water.

"I do not know who that man is," Arabella whispers. "But I think I have dreamt of him. I sometimes see Jonathan in dreams. In several of them, he has been speaking to this man. Sometimes this man is a mist of rain and once he was a raven. I cannot explain it. I fear he may be John Uskglass."

Emma shivers. She has been taught how to speak to a king, but that is a king of humans. The Raven King is a king out of history, one who reigns now in truth only in Faerie and on the other side of Hell. Emma would sooner know how to speak to King Arthur. Still, one might at least offer the king something to drink.

But Emma looks up and there is the man standing before them. His skin is stretched oddly over his face and his cloak is dark and still has something of the mirror-cover to it. He is not a fairy, but Emma would not consider him a human. He is something caught in between. He is terrifying.

He bows to them.

Emma realizes she and Arabella are both standing. Emma grips Arabella's arm. They curtsy in unison.

"Mrs. Strange," says the man in a voice so peculiar that Emma's skin crawls to hear it, "I have been told I have something of yours. You will find it here in a hundred years. Good day."

And there is no wind, there are no bells; the man is simply gone. Arabella falls into her chair and Emma kneels in front of her to comfort her. Emma has no special feelings for her husband, but Arabella loves Jonathan Strange deeply. Theirs is a marriage with many troubles, but their feelings have endured. Emma's heart breaks to see Arabella so distraught.

"Jonathan," Arabella murmurs. " _Jonathan_." She buries her head in her hands. "A hundred _years_."

"It will go quickly," Emma soothes, "and you will be there to see him. You have the king's promise."

"I will not go back into Darkness to visit him," Arabella says, fighting back tears, "and he cannot come out to visit me. And this to be my life for a century!"

"You might still write to each other," Emma suggests. "He must still come into this world sometimes, he must still eat and drink and sleep, he is still a human man. You might write to each other."

Arabella dries her eyes and allows Emma to comfort her. Emma catches Arabella's hands in hers and kisses them until Arabella is no longer shaking.

"Dear Emma, what would I do without your friendship," Arabella says. 

"You shall never have to find out," Emma promises her. She sits back down at the table.

Arabella moves the newspapers around to distract herself, then looks up firmly. "I might tell him of the magic," Arabella says, bold. "And if he does not respond, then let darkness take him. He will have a hundred years to forgive me for learning his trade."

"There is nothing to forgive," Emma says fiercely. "You are the finest magician of my acquaintance, and, I dare say, in England or anywhere else in this world, or any other. You shall have your hundred years to study before your husband returns, and then we shall see which Strange will be the one history remembers for bringing magic back to England!"

**Author's Note:**

> [Yuletide Reveal Post](https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/850438.html)


End file.
